A contractor for the state Department of Transportation is scheduled to blast away the last of the bridge's foundation Wednesday at 10 a.m., the department said in a traffic advisory.

It will be the last of six blasting days. The DOT will stop traffic briefly during the explosion, on Route 3 for about half a mile in each direction from the bridge, on Riverside Avenue between Rutherford Avenue and Marginal Road, and on the ramp from Riverside Avenue to Route 3 westbound.

The timing of the blasting may change. DOT will provide real-time updates on 511nj.com.

Traffic currently travels on three lanes in each direction on the outer thirds of the new Route 3 Passaic River Bridge. Work on the inner third of the bridge is scheduled to start in the spring.

When completed, the bridge will have two local lanes and two express lanes in each direction.

The old Route 3 Passaic River Bridge stood since 1949. It was a drawbridge—a double-bascule trunnion bridge, to be exact—but it hadn't't opened since the 1980s.

Replacing the bridge, deemed structurally deficient and functionally obsolete, is the major part of a project to overhaul Route 3 between Main Avenue in Clifton and the Route 17 interchange.